


Inconceivable

by Osidiano



Category: Digimon Adventure
Genre: Fighter Taichi, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Irony, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Post-Series, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Destruction, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-01
Updated: 2007-01-01
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4580142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Osidiano/pseuds/Osidiano
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another cleanup of a really old songfic. This was a stylistic experiment, and the only songfic I ever did where I actually used the lyrics as a piece of the story. This is not meant as a Taito/Yamachi fic; they're just friends here.</p><p>Song is 'Inconceivable' by Leah Andreone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inconceivable

The sandy colored acoustic guitar was set leisurely upon the unmade bed, a used pick resting beside it but hidden none the less by the rumpled covers. A tape recorder whirled softly from the pillow on which it had been placed; it was now simply running through the last bit of available space on the cassette. Only a few minutes ago, before the brunet had left the room, it had been in use, casually taking in that soft tenor voice that sang to it. But the man had, as mentioned, gone away, allowing it to record the near silence that was left. Perhaps he had wanted the last fading notes to be kept in, even after he had slammed his hand on the cords to halt the noise.

In the hall just outside of the bedroom, the man sat on his off-white carpet, back against the closed door. He had a pack of cigarettes lying next to his unfurled legs, one in his mouth, though unlit. Smoking was bad for your health, he remembered his little sister telling him that. And so he had stopped lighting them, almost content to have the nicotine pressed between his lips. The small black lighter was behind him on the dresser right inside the door. He took a shaky breath, taking the cigarette from his mouth and picking up the pack from the floor. It was full except for the one he held, which he then replaced. The good news was that he did not have to buy more when he went to the store tomorrow.

After tucking the pack into the rolled up sleeve of his white work shirt like always, he stood once more, half tempted to get his lighter and actually smoke. But no, that would be bad for the apartment. His little sister would kill him. That would also be bad for the apartment. And so, with an all too heavy sigh, the man scuffed his house slippers on the carpet, and walked through the dull and almost lifeless living room to the kitchen. Since his little sister had stopped living with him he had not done much in the way of making the place more homely, but it was just fine for him. Besides, he always picked up when she came over. And he _never_ smoked inside.

* * *

A few days went by, and nothing but the arrangement changed. The guitar was now in its proper case — old beaten leather that did not quite look black anymore but could not be called grey — with the pick stuck between two strings on the neck. A cassette, possibly the same that had been inside the tape recorder, sat on the dresser beside the man’s lighter, said recorder open with its dead batteries across the room where they had hit the wall, leaving the barest trace of a dent. The man was once again absent, and this time the apartment was empty.

If he had been in the military, they would have said that he was MIA, though all the action he participated in now was downtown in the slums and back alleys of the nearby districts. Sometimes the man did not do much when he went out. On other occasions he rose to the challenges thrown out by grungy bar-fighters. That was where he really made his money, not at the TV station where he worked during most hours of the day. But it was not daytime now; it was night, time uncertain until near dawn. And that was still a good ways off, nothing to worry about.

How many hours passed was both unnoticed and unimportant; all that could be said was that a door opened, and the man returned, tired and beaten. His lip was split, nose flat and broken, a black eye on his bronzed face that matched the ugly bruise along his cheek, signifying the break of bone there. Which rib was broken he knew naught, only that it was and it hurt and made breathing difficult. But he needed sleep more than a doctor, and he wanted to put away the dark blue duffel bag that held his work clothes and prize money. He won most of the time, actually, and was a fairly good gambler.

The bag hit the ground, his body falling onto the tangled sheets. There was a cut above one eye, the blood trickling gently into his vision. He saw only red for a moment before he blinked hazily to clear it. A strange desire for a cigarette overtook him, and he dragged himself up to the dresser for his lighter. This would be his first real smoke in a while. The pack dropped limply from his shaking hands, though he managed to keep hold of one. _Always one_. He lit up, being able to take only a few long drags before it was at the filter, in which case he turned it and put it out on his tongue before allowing it to join the pack.

His vision went red again, and this time blinking did not help. Did he take something before the fight? He could not remember. The floor tilted, lighter somehow gone from his hands as he swayed, trying desperately to keep his balance. He leaned too far back, fell and hit his head on the edge of the bed. It was too much, and his body shut down, and perhaps he thought it would be for only a moment, a slight fainting spell. Perhaps that was what went through his mind in that brief moment before black, but whatever did, he did not notice the knock on the apartment door.

* * *

The front door opened slowly after a moment, someone calling out a name as they stepped inside. It was another man, this one with blond hair and fair skin, fewer lines etched in by stress and time to gauge his age by. He looked around the short entryway, scanning the dark kitchen. No one answered, and so he closed the door behind him, slipping his shoes off and moving further towards the other rooms. He called out the name again, wondering where his friend could be at such an hour. Looking down, he saw dirt tracks on the almost white carpet, and decided to follow them.

They led him through the sparse living room, and he bumped into the coffee table before making his way to the hall. He peered down it to see the light on in the room on the left. At the end of the hall was the bathroom, door just as open as the one with a light. This man recognized it as the other’s bedroom, and called out the name for a third time. There was no answer. He walked to the doorway, peered inside, and shied away.

Nothing prepared him to see his best friend sprawled across the floor, head propped forward by the wooden ledge that poked out from under the mattress, and dark brown eyes open like the doors but glassy and sightless. The blond moved to him, kneeling down next to the prone form and taking a not yet cold hand in hope of finding a pulse on the wrist. There was none. He almost wept then, but the tears would not come forth from his blue eyes.

An hour passed, maybe two, and then he stood, clammy hands dropping the one he held. Stumbling, he backed up into the dresser, cassette and recorder falling onto his foot. He lowered his gaze to see them, bending down and picking them up. Just as he was about to put them back, he noticed a small scribble that was the man’s handwriting. It caused this man to stop, bringing it closer to squint at the scrunched word. It was his name. He almost looked back to the body, but instead shook his head, cramming the tape roughly into the small player and hitting the “play” button.

There was the sound of someone tuning a guitar, along with the faint spinning of gears from the player. They were on the G string when they started humming, identifying themselves as male, as the friend on the floor. The humming stopped, and instead of tuning they were playing warm-up chords, and then the man on the floor started to speak from the dirty grey speaker.

“I know that this is probably late, but what can I say? I procrastinate, you know? Anyway,” and here he hit a wrong note, muttering a curse before he continued. “I remembered that you were having a bad time awhile back, so I thought: hey, you’re a musician, you understand music, right? So, just listen and don’t laugh, okay?” The warmup chords stopped, and for a moment the blond worried that no song was ever recorded. But then notes were being played softly, a little hesitantly. He did not know the song, did not know what the meaning or point to this was. All he knew was that his friend started singing, a light tenor that sounded so right with the lyrics:

_“I know you can’t imagine angels taking flight. I know you can’t imagine your darkest hour’s light. You might think it strange, but I now that you can fly. I know you don’t believe but there’s heaven in your eyes —“_

The man slumped down to the floor with the corner of the dresser digging into his back painfully, head in his hands. He tried not to let himself cry again. What kind of irony was this? What kind of a morbid God did things like this?

_“— And when you think you’re not enough just know that I do, even though it’s inconceivable . . .to you.”_

He wished he could reach up and turn it off. He tried to convince his muscles to lift his arm and move his hand so that he could grasp those kind and biting words between his fingers and fling them as far from him as possible. His body did not move, did not respond; it ignored him and his simple requests.

_“— I know you can’t imagine you could heal the blind. I know you can’t imagine you could change my life. You don’t seem to see that you’re the miracle in me; I know you don’t agree, but the world needs you to breathe —“_

His mind seemed to work against him; it focused on every breath taken in and every fumbled note played. It flaunted the human error of the song, the work of a novice trying to impress the professional. He was angry with it. How was it that it could be so detached, so numb now? He dug his fingers into his scalp, and hung his head so that he would not keep staring at his friend. They had traveled across worlds and fought the greatest of evils together; their hearts had beat in time together and their blood had pumped through the other’s veins. It was hard to imagine that anything could have come in the way of all that.

_“— And when you think you’re not enough just know that I do, even though it’s inconceivable . . . to you.”_

A break in the music, an unsteady guitar riff that was just ever so slightly off tune, and he swallowed hard. His eyes were dry and itchy and hurt. He could not bring himself to cry anymore, as if his whole world had been hollowed out by this single event. For the first time in a long time, he prayed.

_“— I can’t imagine why your eyes don’t make you smile. I can’t imagine why you don’t see you’re worth my while. And maybe you don’t see it now; still I know it’s true, even though it’s inconceivable to you.”_

He prayed that it would end, that this was all just a bad dream, a nightmare to awaken from. He prayed that he would wake up any second now, and that his friend would answer the door when he rushed over. But the music kept playing and the nightmare did not end.

_“— I know you can’t imagine standing on the moon. I know you can’t imagine this song’s about you. Please don’t go away, take a step it’d be too far. I’m not overreacting, I just see things as they are. And when you think you’re not enough just know that I do, even though it’s inconceivable . . . to you . . .”_

“Why . . .?” the question was barely audible in the dying notes of the song that filled the dead air of the room. Those dirty grey speakers crackled slightly, and that sweet tenor voice, half-choked with emotion, came back to deliver the man’s final wishes:

“Look, I. . . what I mean is. . . I just hope you feel better soon.”


End file.
